


Last Harvest

by SylvanWitch



Series: Blessed Sabbats [7]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-05-03
Updated: 2012-05-03
Packaged: 2017-11-04 18:08:21
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/396708
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SylvanWitch/pseuds/SylvanWitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The God must give Himself wholly over in order for the world to be reborn, but remember, "If winter comes, can Spring be far behind?"</p>
            </blockquote>





	Last Harvest

**Author's Note:**

> On Samhain (Halloween to all you non-Pagans out there), the God sacrifices Himself so that we may have the long, healing sleep of winter. The Goddess, heavy with His child, cries for His loss, and the world is plunged into darkness until Yule, when He is reborn to Her.

Their last hunt is long behind them when they come to the pond for the final time.

 

Winter nips at their hands and cheeks, a carrion breeze carrying dark promise, dying leaves like heavy confetti falling around them as Sam bears his brother down to the pond for their last lying down.

 

Dean’s breath is shallow, his eyes a slitted glint of green in a too-pale face.

 

At this age, his freckles are at war with age spots, which do nothing to mar his beauty.  Sam sees the brother he has always loved, and he carries him with a reverence he’s tried to show more times than he can count or remember.

 

Now, they have no more memories to make except this one.

 

The sun is setting, bringing with it the whispers of night, reminding Sam that the veil is thinnest beneath the high bone-white moon that rides like a pirate ship—or a ferry—in the vast expanse of universe that spreads itself over them.

 

They are blanketed in stars as Sam lays Dean down beside the pond, which in its stillness mirrors an eternity of distant grace.

 

Dean stirs when he feels himself braced against the earth, opening his eyes wider, breath pluming out before him in a thin stream that comforts Sam. 

 

“Hey,” Sam says, trying a smile, and Dean’s own lips widen to match the look.

 

“Hey yourself,” he husks, voice faint like it’s carrying already over a great space between them.

 

Sam has settled them against a rock not far from their usual place by the bank of the small pond, and he slides in behind his brother, stretches his legs out long around Dean, wraps his arms around him and pulls him close, cradling him against his chest.

 

Dean’s head, thin-haired and restless with palsy, fits in the hollow of Sam’s bony shoulder, and Sam rubs his stubbled chin against the softness of Dean’s temple, skin paper-thin and wrinkled.

 

“Leave it to you to pick Halloween.”  Sam’s voice is gentle, no accusation in his tone.  It has been too long obvious what was coming for him to resent his brother’s timing.  Besides, Dean’s laugh, rich if breathy, reaches up to warm the coldness growing in the region of Sam’s heart.

 

“No chance of getting lost along the way,” Dean observes. 

 

“Yeah, Dad’s probably waiting impatiently, wondering what’s taking you so long.”

 

Even after all the years since their father’s loss, Sam feels it, a lead weight pulling down at the corners of his mouth, making his breath heavy.  In his arms, Dean shivers, and Sam knows his brother feels the same.

 

“Dad,” Dean whispers, running a shaking hand weakly over his dry lips.  “God, Dad.”

 

“And Mom,” Sam adds, knowing that he does not have to.  Dean’s next shiver turns into a twitch, which ratchets up into a hacking cough Sam has come to hate.  He holds his brother steady through it, offers him the handkerchief he keeps in his pocket always for this need.

 

The stains are blue in the moonlight, somehow more benign.

 

“Okay?” Sam asks, when the worst of it is done.

 

Dean’s nod is more a product of tremors than acknowledgment, and Sam takes in a breath to offer comfort.

 

“Sam,” Dean manages, getting there first.  “It’s okay, you know.  It’s time.”

 

Sam cannot answer.  For all that he’s been prepared for this, for all he’s been holding in his heart the hope that it would come sooner, before he lost his brother in some other, more awful way, he’s still not ready.

 

How could he be?

 

“Kiss me,” Dean says then, his voice almost its old self, strong and sure and full of the only devil Sam has always known and loved.

 

He turns his head toward his brother, reaches the last scant inch to take Dean’s breath in his mouth, to hold it in case it’s the last and Dean needs it back.

 

Dean’s tongue traces Sam’s lower lip, and Sam opens his mouth wider, moaning at the taste of his brother, which has never changed, and at the feel of him giving everything he is, which has also been the same since their first kiss more than fifty years ago.

 

It’s an awkward angle, and Sam’s back hurts; he’s sure Dean’s neck is giving out under the pressure of the relentless kiss, but his brother doesn’t let up, doesn’t cease to suck on Sam’s tongue or nip his lips or lave the roof of his mouth, until they are both panting with want.

 

Dean’s hand comes up to cup Sam’s cheek, and before Sam has a chance to feel how cold his brother’s skin is, the caress has ended, as has the kiss, as has his brother.

 

Beneath the Samhain sky Sam keens his loss, knowing Dean’s death was necessary and even right but wishing anything but such a sacrifice, even if their love seeds the future with hope.

 

He stays a long time by the pond with his brother in his arms, for what but the cold and dark of such a night could best keep company with his grieving?

 

Sam says “Dean,” into the air with every shifting of the wind and listens closely for voices beyond the veil. If he hears the joy of a reunion, he does not say, for there is none left but he who would know the name Winchester.

 

When morning comes, he is ready for it, the sun rising weak on the horizon, the clouds behind it promising snow.  Winter is arriving just in time to be greeted with strange fire, a pyre plying the sky with holy smoke, the flames reflected against the water and cast back brilliantly, making their own sun.

 

Sam will wait patiently.  He has given over wholly to the hope of what comes after.  He will wait.


End file.
